


The Selfishness of Redemption

by AcolyteofDaniel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 22:03:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2244918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcolyteofDaniel/pseuds/AcolyteofDaniel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prompted exploration into the mind of a "secondary character" during a major scene -- What was Narcissa thinking when she lied to Voldemort? (Also available on FF.net)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Selfishness of Redemption

_This story makes use of characters and events from J. K. Rowling's_ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows _, but makes no profit in so doing, and is not meant disrespectfully._

The Selfishness of Redemption (Narcissa Malfoy in the Forbidden Forest, on lying to the Dark Lord)

     I have never hated my husband as I do now. Through years of being scorned, of bribing our way into favor, watching him cower from consequence... I have always been a good wife, a woman who behaved according to her station. My mother raised me a daughter of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, the oldest and proudest of all Britain's great magical lines. Once upon a time, I would have rivaled the Queen (foul Muggle) for power, for influence.

     Now? Here I kneel, because my husband signed himself a slave to a madman. I am helpless, because my husband's stupidity cost my son's freedom of choice (but would he have chosen differently, my Draco? Perhaps. In some ways, he is both bolder and more cowardly than his father. He makes no secret of his true self, but he nearly preferred death to servitude. Foolish boy.)

     I bear no mark of skull and serpent on my arm; I am not marred by that foul sign of a foul man. But because my husband has long borne that scar, I am enslaved all the same. So here I kneel, in the filth of a forest filled with the foulest beasts that make England their home. Around me stand the worst and most volatile of my husband's brethren -- even my own sister (was Andy right, all those years ago, when she fled our family? Bella is surely mad, and she is no fit Lady of her House.). We wait here as our Master prattles on about his great glories, waiting for a boy the age of my own son to march to his death. I struggle to contain my fear, to maintain my composure as I was taught. I do not know if my son is alive; he is fighting a war he should never have known, barely an adult. The boy we await is my own son's age, and I cannot stop myself from wondering, had our lives been reversed, would I have had the strength to stand between my son and death incarnate? I am an honest woman, and I know my own strength. I will not lie to myself. 

     And here comes the true test -- a boy nearly alone in the world (my Master and sister to blame for that, he would hate me quite rightly.) I wish the pale beast would cease his prattle and just finish the boy. The child is shaking in fear, and a mother's instinct makes me ache to help him. But I cannot. I _will_ not. To help this boy would be to condemn my own, and I will not risk that.

     I watch the boy fall, and do not allow my face to change. I watch my master fall, and my confusion is not noticed in the chaos (I hope the backfire killed him for a second time, he deserves a thousand deaths in agony.) And then he stands again, and it is a struggle to mask my disappointment. I just want to be free of this fear, to see my son safe. And when that pale finger (like the legs of a young albino Acromantula, freakish and malformed) points at me, demands that I ensure the permanence of the boy's death, I obey, hands shaking in fear. Which is worse? That this child, scarred by war, is dead, and we are left alone? Or that perhaps he still lives? I feel the flutter of a heartbeat beneath my fingers, and my own heart stammers in its rhythm. He's alive, and if I say so, I won't be. I won't ever know if my son survived. And so I force myself to recall the ego of my Master, and I steady my heart, gather my breath, and lie through my teeth. The boy will live, because no one betrays the Dark Lord, and so no one will check behind me. I am a Black, by birth, and somehow, they think it makes me honest. But I am a _mother_ first, and nothing will stop me finding my son.


End file.
